Pup kickers shut down Great Bend 3-0

Tuesday night was one of celebration for not only the McPherson High School girls’ soccer team, but all of the Bullpup spring sports.

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By Chris SwickSports Editor

McPhersonSentinel - McPherson, KS

By Chris SwickSports Editor

Posted May. 14, 2014 at 7:00 AM

By Chris SwickSports Editor
Posted May. 14, 2014 at 7:00 AM

MCPHERSON

Tuesday night was one of celebration for not only the McPherson High School girls’ soccer team, but all of the Bullpup spring sports.

In addition to the five soccer players, seniors from track and field, tennis, golf and swimming were honored during MHS’s 3-0 shellacking of Great Bend at McPherson Stadium.

Of course, the focus of the night was on the soccer team, who impressed head coach Chris Adrian with how they played, especially in the first half.

“It would have been nice to get a couple [of goals] in the second half,” Adrian, whose team played twice in 24 hours, said. “You could tell, after sitting and cooling off at half time, our legs just looked stiff out there. No matter who you’re playing against, you’re running for two games, you do get tired.”

The first 20 minutes was, really, where the Bullpups did their best work. Sophomore Bailey Holton hit a perfectly placed header off an assist from Breckon Kaufman that made it 1-0 with 33:49 left in the half.

“That header Bailey had was a great header,” Adrian said. “It was behind her and she got up and just placed it over [the goalie].”

Barely five minutes later, the Pups struck again, this time as sophomore Danielle Lacy drilled a shot that was set up by Paige Schmidt to make it 2-0. It was Lacy’s first goal of the year.

“She needed that so bad,” Adrian said. “She’s been working so much better over the last two weeks of getting into positions where she can win that.”

The final Bullpup goal of the night came from Zaida Chapman, who blew past several Panther defenders and arched a shot from about 20 yards out past Great Bend goalkeeper Emily Ibarra with 15:56 left before halftime.

The shutout was a fitting way to send off seniors Addie Lanning, Janaye Hanschu, Shaelah White, SueAnn Buster and Isabella Harvey. While White was unable to get in the game due to her knee injury, Adrian was able to work each of the other four seniors into the rotation during the course of the game.

“It was good to get those seniors in there,” Adrian said. “It was fun to have SueAnn and [Harvey] coming in and getting some minutes there that second half. And you could tell the girls were excited for their teammates to get their opportunity to get in and play. That was fun to see the bench just cheering them on.”

All told, McPherson (7-8-1) took six shots on goal, while Sydney Ruder made two saves in the Bullpup net. Adrian was impressed with the fight a winless Great Bend team showed against the Bullpups.

Page 2 of 2 - “They played hard the whole game,” Adrian said. “You have to give them credit. It’s easy to be down 3-0 at halftime and lose your confidence. They played really good, the second half especially, and made us work. We just seemed like we got a little tired out there.”

The JV squad ended their game with a 0-0 tie.

McPherson now turns its attention to the Class 4-1A Regionals. The Bullpups, thanks in part to winning their last two games of the year, have guaranteed at least one regional game, that coming on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at McPherson Stadium.

Their opponent will be announced at a later date, though Adrian felt the possibility was strong that it could be either Circle or Mulvane.

The Class 4-1A State Quarterfinals and Semifinals will be played out May 30-31 at Kansas City Piper High School.

Contact Chris Swick by email at cswick@mcphersonsentinel.com and follow him on Twitter @SwickSentinel.